


i wanna get better

by intertwiningwords



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: AU, Connor Lives AU, Connor Murphy & Zoe Murphy Bonding, Connor Murphy Lives (Dear Evan Hansen), Depression, Family Healing, Gen, Mental Illness, Recovery, Suicide Attempt, Therapy, friendships, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 12:32:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17043803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intertwiningwords/pseuds/intertwiningwords
Summary: connor comes home after five days in the hospital, and things are different.





	i wanna get better

**Author's Note:**

> WHOO! This fic took me so long to write and I had it looked over by a few people to make sure it was, for lack of a better term, politically correct. I struggle with mental health myself, so this was partially inspired by my own experiences. Obviously, this isn't universal, and recovery is a different journey for everyone, and there's no rights or wrongs!
> 
> Trigger warnings: suicide attempt, self-harm mentions (non-graphic), a lot of crying & swearing, mentions of smoking weed, hospitalization/therapy

Connor returns from the hospital after five days. His hair is tied back in a messy ponytail at the base of his neck, and there are dark circles beneath his eyes that age his face. He sits in the back seat of his father’s car, arms crossed over his chest as he stares out the window. There’s a bandage on his right temple, covering the cut caused when he fell against the hard linoleum floor of the upstairs bathroom. Nobody speaks. The radio is on just a bit, the news murmuring softly is the only sound.

Zoe’s hazel eyes flicker between both her parents in the front seats, then drift to her brother’s slumped form beside her. “So, are we just going to pretend that everything's alright?” she asks abruptly.

Cynthia sighs from the front seat, turning her body slightly to face her daughter. “Zoe, please, can we not have this conversation now?”

“Then when are we gonna have it, mom?” she asks. “Because you two love to just avoid and pretend and never do anything-”

“Zoe, that’s enough.”

She scowls, crossing her arms across her chest and flopping back against the leather seat and huffs. Connor is watching her now, shocked at her outspokenness, especially in his defense. He’s oddly touched, not that he would ever admit it. He notices that she’s looking at him now, and he flushes a little bit, embarrassed at being caught looking. His lips weakly quirk up in an attempt to smile.

Her expression softens, but she reverts her attention to clouds outside the window.

The rest of the car ride is silent.

 

***

 

The first thing he wants to do when he gets home takes a shower.

He’d taken one at the hospital, but it was cold and unfamiliar with generic, scentless soap and white tile scrubbed so clean it was blinding. He climbs the stairs slowly, as his body is still used to being bedridden. He opens the hallway closet and pulls out a green towel, tossing it on the bathroom counter and he strips off the clothes he’d arrived at the hospital in and put back on to leave it in. His eyes flicker up and away from his own body, the scars that litter his arms and thighs. He takes the hair band out, letting his curls flop lifelessly onto his shoulders.

The water is hot, and it stings the fresher marks on his body at first, but he quickly learns to ignore the feeling. He squeezes a generous amount of coconut-scented soap into the palm of his hand, scrubbing at his skin until he begins to feel clean. He washes his hair for what feels like ages, and watches in disgust as a clump of it seems to shed from his scalp. Malnutrition, the doctor had explained, to which his parents insisted they fed him. Connor had actually snorted out loud. Yeah, his mom cooked her weird organic food, but that didn’t mean he ate it half the time. He rarely had the energy to eat, let alone the desire. 

The doctor had suggested so many things. Vitamins, therapy, supplements, antidepressants. Fuck. Knowing his parents, he would probably just wind up in another yoga retreat or taking weird over-the-counter pills that taste like chalk and make him nauseous. 

He stands beneath the water until it starts to get cold, and his shoulders hunch as he turns the water off, grabbing the towel and wiping stray drops of water from his chest and stomach. He steps out onto the pristine bath mat and sits down on the closed lid of the toilet, burying his face in his hands for a minute, trying to stop his head from spinning. This was a bad idea, coming back into this bathroom first thing. Just a few days prior he had been laying on this very floor. A nearly empty bottle of his mother’s old painkillers from a surgery she’d had when Connor was still young had been pushed into the back of the medicine cabinet, forgotten about. He had found them roughly a month ago, and set a plan. That day, his plan took off. And, well, now he’s here, naked and holding back sobs right back in the same room he had expected to die in.

He’s still not sure if he’s glad to be there or not.

 

***

 

Throwing on a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie, Connor sits on the edge of his bed and looks around his room, a mixture of the person he once was and the person that he has become.

His walls have been the same shade of blue since he was eight. The bookshelf is overflowing with favorites and books he’s never read. His desk is cluttered with mechanical pencils and crumpled papers. The floor is covered in piles of dirty clothes, or clean ones, he’s really not quite sure which.

Maybe without so much clutter, his mind would feel freer. But that’s an issue for another day.

A soft knock on his door startles him from his thoughts.

“Connor?” his mother’s voice says softly.

He makes a hum of acknowledgment.

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” he says, and it comes out hoarsely.

The doorknob twists slowly as Cynthia steps inside, her eyes catching the aforementioned mess before returning to her son’s pallid face. “Do you want to come down for dinner, sweetie?”

He resists the urge to cringe at her pet name, and shrugs.

“C’mon, Connor, the doctor said you need to eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” he snaps.

He sees the way she flinches and is overcome with guilt, an emotion that has seemed to plague him for years now. “I’m sorry,” he manages to croak out. It’s the first time he spits those words out in a long time, despite having owed apologies time and time again.

“It’s okay-”

“No, it’s not! I’m sorry for  _ everything _ , I’m sorry for being like this and for ruining your life-”

“You haven’t ruined anything, Connor,” she says softly, tears streaking through her makeup on her cheeks. “And you have  _ not _ ruined my life. I love you.”

Connor continues to sob, burying his face in his hands and she tentatively reaches forward, pulling his bony frame into her arms and hugging him tightly. And for the first time in forever, he lets her. Instead of shying away from her touch, he melts into it, the sadness and shame that wracks his body too much to fight, and he’s spent so long fighting. He’s  _ tired _ . Tired of feeling like a fuck up, a failure, a fucking disaster. He’s just so goddamn tired.

They’re silent, no words break through their crying. 

And it’s not enough to heal him, or save him, or rid him of everything shitty thing he’s done or felt or said or thought. But it’s like a bit of weight is lifted off his shoulders, hugging his mother around her neck like a child again, reverting back to a time when everything was okay.

When she pulls away, wiping black smudges of makeup under her teary eyes, her mouth is pulled into a thin smile, stroking his hair and the side of his face. “I love you, Connor.”

The words hang on the tip of his tongue for a moment before he manages to say it back, but it doesn’t mean that he feels it any less. He just hasn’t said it in so long, he forgot that he did. “I love you too.”

 

***

 

He’s been out of the hospital for a week now, and family dinners are no less awkward.

Zoe keeps shooting their parents' dirty looks as she stubbornly stabs at her food, her gaze drifting to Connor every so often too.

“So, Connor how are you feeling?” she asks in a loud, pointed tone one evening, pushing tasteless lasagna around her plate with her fork.

Larry sighs and sits back in his chair.

Connor shrugs. “Why do you care?”

She opens her mouth to say something, face screwed up with annoyance, but she falters, shutting her mouth and looking back down at her plate.

“Zoe, Connor, please…”

“No, I mean, she doesn’t really give a shit,” Connor says. “She just wants to act like she does because she wants to prove you guys wrong, but she doesn’t care how you guys treat me. She just wants you to know that she doesn’t agree with it.”

“That’s not true!” Zoe shouts, pushing her chair back. When Connor looks at her, she almost looks like she’s about to cry, her cheeks blotchy. “I give a shit about you, even if you haven’t given me much of a reason to. I  _ thought _ I hated you for so fucking long! But seeing your brother lifeless on the bathroom floor changes that I guess. But  _ you’re _ the one who doesn’t care, Connor! You don’t fucking care how we feel about you. All you do is yell and fight and get high and you don’t give us a chance to show that we care! So, sorry for trying.”

And with that, she turns on her heel and storms up the stairs before Connor can even process what she said.

Larry clears his throat. “She’ll calm down. Cynthia, maybe you should bring her a plate up to her room. She barely ate.”

Cynthia only nods but excuses herself from the table.

Connor swears he hears her muffled crying from the kitchen. He goes up to his room without a word, leaving his father at the dining room table alone.

 

***

 

When they were little, Connor and Zoe used to pass notes under their bedroom doors. Slipping sheets of paper with silly messages across the wooden floors, though there was no real rhyme or reason behind it.

Connor still remembers the day Zoe slipped a piece of computer paper under his door with the message “Are you okay?” beneath his door in blue marker, a little sad face drawn beside the question mark.

He had picked it up off the floor and crumpled it in his fist, tossing it in his garbage can.

She heard the paper crumple and knocked softly, whispering “Connor?” in a tearful voice.

“Go away!” he’d replied.

And she’d run off to her room, slamming the door behind her.

Today, Connor rips a sheet of looseleaf paper from an old notebook, takes a Sharpie off his desk and writes: “We should talk. If you want. I understand if you don’t. I owe you so many apologies and explanations. Whenever you’re ready.” He slides it under her door on his way downstairs to grab a glass of water.

He wakes up the next morning to the same sheet of paper under his door, a pink pen having replied. “When I get home from school if you’re up to it.”

He gets his Sharpie out again and writes, “Okay.”

She’s already left when he goes to put it under her door, and he goes downstairs to find his mom still at the table. “Good morning,” she says softly. “I didn’t want to wake you up because you just seem so exhausted lately. I waited to eat for you though.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says, but when he sees her face fall, he frowns. “Not that I don’t appreciate it. I just mean that I feel bad. You’re probably hungry.”

She shrugs, shaking her head fondly. “You’ve always been such a people pleaser. When you were little, I mean. You never wanted to make decisions for yourself, you always needed input. Once I asked you what you wanted for Christmas and you said ‘whatever you want to get me, mom!”

Connor lets out a puff of air through his nose that’s meant to be a laugh. He sits down beside her at the table, pouring himself a bowl of cereal. He knows that he should eat, but he’s just really not that hungry.

She watches him, and Connor fears for a moment she’ll begin to cry again, and he really doesn’t want to have more than one emotional talk a day. It’s too draining. But he hasn’t allowed himself to feel in so long, perhaps he needs it.

“I remember that,” he finally says. “You laughed and said that wasn’t how presents were supposed to work. That they were supposed to make the person receiving the gift happy, not to one giving it.”

She smiles. “And you told me that as long as I was happy, you were happy.”

Connor lets his lips twitch into a half-smile, shaking his head. “I wish that would have stayed true,” he catches himself saying before he can hold it back. It’s like he’s lost his filter, emotions pouring out instead of staying bottled up inside. Maybe he’d knocked his head hard enough on the tile to shake some sense into himself.

 

***

 

Zoe gets home from school a bit earlier than usual, which makes Conor wonder if she’s been waiting all day for this talk like he has. Connor hears her converse coming up the stairs. Her bedroom door opens and closes, and then he hears nothing again. He waits, sitting on his bed in anticipation, playing with the strings on his sweatshirt to occupy his mind.

A moment later, there’s a knock on his door.

“Come in,” he says, head perking up.

Zoe turns the knob and steps in, her eyes cast downward. “Hi,” she says.

“Hi.”

She stands there, hands stuffed in the pockets of her jeans.

“You can, like, sit down,” Connor tells her, gesturing vaguely at his desk chair or the bed beside him. Unsurprisingly, she goes for the chair.

“How was school?” he asks.

“Shitty,” she replies with a small, humorless chuckle. “All of a sudden, people want to be my friend because they think I need pity or something.”

Connor opens his mouth and closes it again. Apology stuck on his tongue, overshadowed by curiosity and a bit of annoyance that people are using his pain to make themselves seem better. “How do people know? What happened, I mean…”

“The school called to ask why you weren’t in, mom and dad told them you were in the hospital, they told your teachers, apparently someone heard them talking about it, rumors spread. Like always. Right now it’s half-and-half that you almost overdosed on crack or that you shot yourself.”

To Zoe’s surprise, that makes Connor laugh. It’s a sound she hasn’t heard in a long time. “I mean, the first one is closer,” he says.

“It’s not funny, Connor,” she says.

He sobers at the look on her face. “Right, sorry.”

It looks like there are tears threatening to well up in her eyes. “Do you understand what you put me through?” she asks. “Not only have you basically ignored me or treated me like shit for the past five years, but I was the one who found you lying in your own fucking puke on the bathroom floor, Connor. And at that moment, every name you’ve called me and every stupid fucking argument melted away because you’re still my  _ brother _ ,” she says, her voice strained with her efforts to hold back tears. “For so long I wished you’d just go away and then the minute you tried...I realized I didn’t want you gone. I just wanted you back.”

“I don’t think the old me is ever coming back,” he says honestly.

“A version of him, then,” she replies. “I know I haven’t been much help, nor have mom and dad, but...Do you remember when we were little, and we were skiing with the Harris’ and you fell and broke your finger?”

Connor’s lips twitch at the memory. “Yeah, I do.”

Zoe smiles. “You didn’t cry or anything, you just told mom in this super proud voice, ‘I’m okay, I’m tough. I can get through anything.”

“Well, kids are optimists,” he says.

“Please just take me seriously,” she says.

“Sorry.”

“I just want my brother back,” Zoe tells him, and her voice cracks as she says it.

“I’m so fucking sorry. I shut you out and I treated you like shit for so long. You should hate me. I know I would if I were you.”

“I wanted to hate you,” Zoe replies. “I convinced myself that I  _ did _ hate you. But I was wrong.”

“I’m not good at apologizing, as you can probably guess, and it seems to be all I’ve been doing the past few days, but fuck, Zoe, I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t know how fast I can forgive,” she tells him honestly. “But I appreciate you saying it. I want things to go back to normal but I know they can’t. Start slow, you know? You can’t fix everything in a day.”

Connor stuffs his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Can I give you a hug?” she asks, her voice going soft and shy, and suddenly she’s eight years old again in Connor’s eyes, a gap between her front teeth and her hair in two braids, looking up at him with wide, teary eyes, asking him for a hug to cheer her up.

He nods, and she stands up and throws herself around him, pulling him close for only a moment before she lets go.

“See you at dinner, I guess,” she says and turns to walk out.

Connor flops back against his bed with a million thoughts running through his mind, but his heart feels a little lighter.

 

***

 

After his talk with Zoe, Connor’s been treading water to keep his emotions under control. He wants to be better, but fuck, it’s so hard to control the things he cannot help. Random flashes of anger choked down his throat like vomit, the urge to cry or scream or smoke until his head went cloudy.

It’s only been two days and he can already feel it beginning to fester, so it’s only a matter of time before it eats him alive.

Zoe has a jazz band rehearsal tonight, and his mom has gone out food shopping, leaving Connor alone with his father in the house. What a joy. Normally he would just lock himself in his room, but he knew if he didn’t keep busy he would sacrifice himself to the baggie of weed in his dresser drawer or, even worse, the blade he keeps hidden in his desk for when even smoking isn’t enough to drown the pain.

He opens his bedroom door, hooks his phone up to his speaker, and starts to clean. Clothes shoved into laundry baskets, books returned to their proper shelves. Crumpled papers tossed in the trash.

Connor is so busy banging his head to the music as he sorts through half-empty sketchbooks, he doesn’t notice his dad standing in the doorway. He hears him knock the second time though, and jerks his head up, pausing his music.

“Yeah?”

Larry Murphy stands in the doorway looking like the most basic suburban dad, hands awkwardly tucked into the pockets of his jeans. “Uh, I can leave you alone if you’re busy…”

“Not busy,” Connor replies.

“Well, your mom and I were talking last night,” he says. “And she said that maybe we should talk.”

Connor swivels around in his desk chair, picking at the skin around his nails. “Okay.”

“Can I come in, sit down?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.”

God, this is so awkward.

Larry takes a seat on the edge of the bed, perched awkwardly as he looks around at the floor. “I’m surprised your room even has a floor,” he chuckles. “I haven’t seen it in ages.”

Connor shrugs. “I thought cleaning might keep me distracted.”

His father nods. “Well, good for you. Keeping busy, I mean. That’s good.”

“Uh-huh.”

Silence fills the room until it’s like the two of them barely fit anymore, pushing them apart rather than closer like this meeting is likely supposed to do. Neither of them can find the right words.

“So, you-”

“I-”

They both stop.

“You talk,” Larry says.

“No, nevermind. You talk,” Connor says.

“I was just gonna say, you, um...You seem better.”

“I’m not really,” Connor replies. “Maybe a little, but I doubt it will last.”

“I want to understand,” Larry says. “I want to help, but I can’t do that unless you help me understand, kid. My generation didn’t do therapy or medication or any of that. I’m not saying it’s right to make people suffer through their crap, I’m just saying that’s how I was raised. So teach me. Help me understand what you need.”

Connor’s lips part slowly, his mouth opening and then closing. “I don’t know,” he admits softly, staring down at his lap. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he says, and though he was sure he’s cried enough in the past few days to dry it all up, his emotions won’t stop overflowing. A sob breaks through him, wracking his body as he buries his face in the heels of his hands. “I just want to be better.”

Just as he starts to get control of himself again, ready to wipe his eyes and apologize for being a baby, his father is kneeling beside his chair, wrapping his arms around him. And a whole new wave hits him, burying his face in his chest and crying.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Don’t be sorry,” Larry replies, and Connor hears the thickness in his voice that shows he’s holding back his own tears. “Just let it out,” he says, patting his back in an awkward, strangely fatherly way.

Connor can’t remember the last time he hugged his dad, but it feels good to sink into his warm, strong embrace. To not feel hated, isolated, ostracized by him any longer. Not that he believes it was ever really intentional, at least, not at first.

Connor pulls away first, wiping his eyes with the back of his hands. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“You’re allowed to cry, kid.”

“No, not for that. For everything.”

“I’m sorry,” Larry says. “I should have listened.”

“I should have talked.”

“Well, we both could have done a lot of things,” his father admits with a small, regretful smile. “But we didn’t, and now we’re here. So we can get on the right track now, huh?”

Connor nods. “Can I ask a favor? I don’t want to ask mom.”

Larry tilts his head, but nods. “What?”

Connor reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out the little matchbox that holds his razor. “Please just throw this away. I don’t care what you do, flush it, toss it in the trash, bury it, I don’t care. Just get it out of my room and out of the house.”

Larry pulls the top open to look inside, and he grimaces and shuts it immediately.

Guilt overwhelms Connor as he watches his father bite back more tears which he still refuses to let fall.

“Of course,” Larry finally says. He turns on his heel to leave, then stops. “Hey, kid?”

“Yeah?”

“You know...You know I love you, right? I know I don’t say it enough, but I do.”

Connor’s lips twitch into a sort of half-smile. “I know.”

Larry turns to leave, but the sound of Connor’s voice makes him pause.

“Love you too.”

 

***

 

The first therapist that Connor goes to is a man with about a thousand photos of his wife and kids surrounding his office, and it always smells like peppermint. He says that Connor has anger management issues,  _ “which is normal for a boy your age” _ ,  and seems to gloss over the fact that Connor isn’t fueled by rage, he’s strangled by his own emotions.

Needless to say, he doesn’t work out.

The next one is a woman with brown curly hair and a nasal voice that makes Connor want to bang his head against her desk. She insists that he try yoga, smoothies, vitamins, and meditation. “Being in the moment is the best way to heal your brain, and your heart.” She has some Gandhi quote hanging on the wall behind her head.

Another unsurprisingly failed attempt.

The third one though is another woman, with short black hair and kind eyes. Her name is Tracey, and she points to each different framed dog photo on her desk and names each one for him. She has five, by the way. Connor could barely remember to take care of himself, let alone five other living things. Perhaps the barking would kind of help though.

She makes him feel listened to, heard. She recommends medication from his doctor, and he gets the appointment to get them.

The first dose does nothing, really. When it gets upped, he feels like his throat is slowly closing up every time he takes one. So, they switch the medication. First dose, nothing again. Up, and still not much of a change, besides a boost in energy. The third one hits the mark though, and after a few weeks, his anger has subsided slightly, he feels more awake, and he has the urge to, like, actually  _ do _ shit instead of just getting high and sleeping.

He’s started going back to school in the middle of this all, and although whispers and stares still seem to follow him through the halls, he learns to ignore them a bit more.

Evan Hansen still has Connor’s name plastered across his cast, and whenever they spot one another in the halls, they offer up small, awkward smiles. Turns out that he’s been talking to Zoe lately, and Connor knows he’s lost the privilege to play protective older brother, so he stays out of it. Evan seems like a nice kid, so he isn’t worried. 

He goes to the library during his off-periods, and Alana Beck, the girl from his tenth grade English class is usually in there. She moves her bag off the seat beside her for him to sit, and while he never would have before, he accepts the offer and sits down, still tentatively.

“Hey!” she says brightly, smiling.

“Hi,” he replies, voice soft, a shy curl of his lips being all he can muster at the moment.

“I don’t mean to overstep, but I was just wondering if you’re doing alright?”

Taken aback, he nods. “Better, at least.”

“Good, I’m so glad to hear that. If you ever need anyone to talk to, you can always come to me. Let me give you my number,” she tells him, looking and sounding oh so serious, and Connor is oddly touched by her over-bearing yet genuine concern.

He nods again, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone, unlocking it with his thumbprint. He opens a new contact and slides it over to her. 

She punches in her name and number quickly, and when she hands it back, Connor sees she’s put a sunflower emoji next to her own name. No one else in his phone has an emoji, but he leaves it anyway. He smiles at her, this time bigger.

And she smiles back.

It’s something.

 

***

 

Alana insists on dragging him to the GSA club next week, and he doesn’t protest.

It’s only her, Jared Kleinman, and another boy named Ben. Unsurprisingly, Alana is president.

Connor’s shoulders tense at the sight of Jared, but the shorter boy makes a show of sticking his hand out across the table to shake Connor’s. Connor gives an amused shake of his head, and Jared offers him an awkward, half-assed smile.

After the meeting, Connor walks home with the strangest feeling in his stomach. Something like happiness. Not quite there, but a bit. Content, maybe. But it’s a good feeling, for sure.

 

***

 

Soon, graduation of senior year comes, and Connor can’t believe he fucking lived this long, let alone passed all of his classes. 

Prom had been the night before, and he’d taken Alana. Well, more like Alana had taken him, since she’s the one who asked. It had been, “ _ just as friends” _ , which he had to stress repeatedly to his parents. Evan took Zoe, which meant tons of awkward pictures on the Murphy family staircase.

“Connor Murphy,” the principal’s voice called over the microphone, and Connor strode across the stage with his hands fiddling in front of him, blinded by the lights but still smiling slightly.

It wasn’t easy. It took him a long time to feel okay, alive, again, and he knew it wouldn’t always be this way. There would be bad days. He may need to adjust his meds or change therapists or whatever.

But at this moment, being handed his high school diploma, something he never thought he’d get, well, it was enough to make the whole journey worth it.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you enjoyed this, thanks for reading! Feedback is very appreciated & can make any writer's day, so click the 'kudos' button not only here but every fic you read & enjoy! I swear it means a lot.
> 
> xxx


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